An ALS/Foundry Seminar
Seminar Date: Tuesday, January 30, 2024
Time: 11:00 am
Location: 67-3111 & Zoom
Talk Title: Autonomous Exploration of Block Copolymer Thin Film Morphologies
Zoom recording (available for 30 days)

Bio:
Dr. Kevin Yager is Group Leader of the Electronic Nanomaterials group in the Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven National Laboratory. His group studies a variety of topics, including self-assembly, hybrid materials, and quantum heterostructures. Dr. Yager obtained his Ph.D. at McGill university on studies of photo-responsive polymers. He worked at NIST on neutron scattering, and joined Brookhaven in 2010. His research program focuses on studies of self-assembling thin films, x-ray scattering measurement methods, and AI/ML for material discovery. He won the Brookhaven 2019 Science & Technology Award, and was selected as an Oppenheimer Fellow by the Department of Energy in 2020.
Abstract:
Autonomous experimentation (AE) holds enormous promise for accelerating scientific discovery. This paradigm leverages machine-learning methods to construct experimental loops where the machine selects and conducts experiments, liberating the human scientist to focus on high-level goals and understanding. This talk will discuss progress in the development of autonomous x-ray scattering, and application to study of block copolymer (BCP) thin films. We apply these methods to study the complexity of blended and layered BCP systems, which form transient structures and non-native morphologies. Judicious choice of initial state, boundary conditions, and processing history can be used to select among competing structures.